I haven't been rushing to post new insights on the Cybils books I've read and reviewed because the young relative who is doing this with me started a new job, and fifth graders can be time consuming. He's not going to have as much time for reading as he did between Christmas and New Year's, so I want to stretch out the material I've collected from him.
Nonetheless, the time has come to talk about Samurai by Jason Hightman again. BDT's impression? "A very good book, though I could have done without the constant screwing up and bickering, though I suppose that all deals with differences in culture, which would be something I would bring into a classroom discussion."
I found that very interesting because while I found the young protagonist's screw ups realistic but trying, I really liked the screw ups and bickering among the adults. The main character's father just doesn't get along with anyone. He has the stereotypical nag-the-son thing going, but in addition to that he squabbles with the Samurai warriors, he fouls up their plans, he just simmers and seethes. He has a woman friend, and I think it would be worth reading the first book in the series just to find out how he managed that.
By the way, BDT liked Samurai enough that he went out and found a copy of that first book, The Saint of Dragons.
2 comments:
I actually found the mistakes and the bickering to be interesting at first. It set up a good conflict that ran counterpoint to the obvious conflict with the dragons. But I wanted to see some growth in this area, but they never really seemed to make much progress, or at least not as much as I wanted them to. I found that frustrating.
I don't know if I could take it book after book.
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